Shopping for Uniper was ‘a mistake’, Finnish finance minister says

HELSINKI, Sept 28 (Reuters) – Shopping for Germany’s prime gasoline importer Uniper (UN01.DE) was “a mistake”, Finland’s finance minister Annika Saarikko informed Reuters, after its nationalisation left each international locations with large losses.

Germany agreed to step in to nationalise Uniper, its largest importer of Russian gasoline, amid a deepening vitality disaster that had introduced Uniper to its knees. A part of that deal was to purchase out Fortum (FORTUM.HE), majority-owned by Finland’s authorities.

Fortum had invested some 7 billion euros ($6.72 billion) within the German firm and mentioned it made a lack of almost 6 billion euros from the exit, one of many largest enterprise failures in Finnish historical past.

“Uniper’s enterprise and the fossil vitality, it wasn’t a good suggestion for Fortum to purchase that enterprise a number of years in the past,” Saarikko mentioned in an interview recorded for Reuters IMPACT, a climate-focused convention going down in London on Oct. 3-4.

“In fact we are able to say now that it was a mistake,” she added.

Between 2013 and 2015, Fortum had gained some 9 billion euros from promoting off its Nordic energy transmission enterprise and in 2017, towards its earlier technique of investing in emission-free Nordic vitality, it determined to speculate the cash into Uniper, buying first a 47% stake from German E.ON.

Subsequently, Fortum raised its stake to round 80% of the German firm.

“Is it clever now to look again and seek for the responsible?” Saarikko mentioned, including “now we’ve got to look ahead”.

So as to clear up the vitality disaster, the European Union wants to alter the pricing construction within the vitality markets, Saarikko mentioned.

“To me it’s clear that we should decouple the worth of pure gasoline and different vitality costs in order that the gasoline worth doesn’t drive electrical energy costs. That is the principle drawback to resolve,” she mentioned.

The European Fee has proposed emergency vitality measures, together with bloc-wide windfall revenue levies on vitality companies, which EU international locations are anticipated to determine on at a gathering of EU ministers on Sept.30.

Finland is open to the Fee’s proposals however wants to listen to extra about them, Saarikko mentioned.

($1 = 1.0422 euros)

Reporting by Anne Kauranen;Enhancing by Elaine Hardcastle

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